


there is light in my lady's house

by hellebored



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Supportive family feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 17:38:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12731217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellebored/pseuds/hellebored
Summary: Cullen's relationship with a woman is a frequent subject in his letters home, but he tends to leave out some key details. Cullen/Adaar.





	there is light in my lady's house

**Author's Note:**

> _There is light in my lady's house_  
>  _and there's none but some falling rain_  
>  _this like a spoken word_  
>  _she is more than her thousand names._ ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUm_qnQzGKU))

Cullen neglects to mention she's qunari.

It isn't the first time he's omitted details from letters home and it certainly won't be the last.  _I've met someone_ , he writes.  _She's unlike any woman I've known_.

Mia presses for details. Cullen expects it; she's always been that way. Mia's been prying secrets out of him since they were children. He holds fast this time.

 _She's tall_ , he says, relenting just a little.  _She has long hair. There are laugh lines around her mouth and eyes._

He doesn't say her hair is white. He doesn't say she braids in the littlest bells he's ever seen, tiny ones the color of copper that don't varnish and that he only hears when she's very close, close enough to kiss.

He doesn't mention he does kiss her. Frequently.

When his lady leans over elfroot in the garden, hair swinging and bells tinkling as she cranes her neck up at  _him_  for once, he wants to tell Mia about the look on her face. The words aren't quite right, but he tries:

_She looks at me like I'm the sun._

He signs his name and sends it before he can change his mind.

\--

Mia replies quickly, like always. Cullen might actually worry if he didn't have a letter back from her within two weeks. It puts his lagging responses to shame.

Apparently the Fereldan summer has been a hot one, something Cullen hasn't experienced in the mountains so far, and when Mia describes the creaking song of insects and muggy evenings dangling her legs in the creek and watching Branson swim, he feels a pang of homesickness: except that's not exactly right, since he never lived where his family relocated to after Honnleath had been overrun.

It's not the place, it’s  _family_  that he misses.

Mia presses flowers into her letter, staining the pages a light fragrant green; it smells like a combination of the elfroot in the Inquisitor’s garden and home.  _Does the lady who has won my brother's affection have a name?_  Mia asks, and the archness in her mock-formal tone comes across even on paper and makes him smile.

When he replies, he includes a rough sketch of the mountains from the Inquisitor’s balcony. It's not very good, but Mia’s never been one to judge his artistic skills even if everything else seems to be fair game.

_Dear Mia,_

_In response to your inquiry as to whether my lady has a name: she does._

\--

Cullen is out training with his men when he hears.  _Inquisitor’s been slashed through the belly_ , a breathless junior guard says.  _They say it's gone infected_.

He nearly twists his ankle when he turns sharply and sprints for the keep. She often comes home covered in cuts that range from the inconsequential to the type that forcibly remind him of what she does and that she’s not infallible; usually he worries for nothing, but it only takes the one time, and if that's what this is-

When he enters the keep, he finds that someone has placed Adaar in a room near Solas’ on the first floor rather than risk the stairs. Vivienne is leaning heavily forward in a chair next to a makeshift bed with her hand clasped in the Inquisitor's, her fingers so much smaller by comparison.

She turns her head when Cullen approaches. “She's stable,” Vivienne says, sounding worn through, and as he steps closer he can see the tremor in her hands. He knows, intimately, the damage magic can do to a mage’s body, and the room _reeks_  of it. The former Templar in him tenses, but he bites his tongue. It's not his place to call Vivienne’s capabilities into question, and furthermore he's learned to see that the risks mages sometimes take to protect life are worth the consequences he was taught to fear above all else.

The Inquisitor stirs, eyes opening slightly. She focuses on Vivienne and suddenly her expression turns earnest: “the heart,” she whispers, “it's in my saddlebag...”

Vivienne’s mouth wavers. She squeezes Adaar’s hand.

“Rest, darling,” she says.

By the time he settles in Vivienne’s place so the enchantress can slip away to recover, the Inquisitor has closed her eyes again. He folds his hands around hers. She doesn't look at him, but he thinks she knows it's him by the way she breathes out all the tension from her face, lines smoothing from her forehead before she drifts into sleep.

A week passes before he finally takes the time to write Mia a letter.

_I'm sorry I haven't written. She was very ill, and I was afraid...it seemed for a while I might lose her. I haven't had the time to think of much else._

That's not entirely true: he's kept up his own responsibilities, running their forces through drills and tracking military supplies. But in another sense it's hardly a lie; his thoughts are always on her.

 _Oh Cullen. I'm so sorry_ , Mia responds.  _We'll keep her in our prayers._

He realizes with a jolt that whatever Mia knows, his entire family knows. Of course they do; he's never asked her to make a secret of it. But for them to care enough to pray for her, without knowing her name… simply because  _he_  cares, and because they love him enough to extend that love to a woman whose identity he holds tight to his chest, like he's ashamed…

Adaar recovers slowly, fighting whatever foulness made its way into her body from the wyvern’s bite. He sleeps in the chair at her bedside until there’s color in her face again, a warm peach undertone he never would've noticed was there until it was missing.

When she's well enough to move upstairs to her own room, he sketches her while she's sitting by the window with one of Dorian’s books in her lap. If she notices him studying her profile she keeps it to herself, but he suspects she does by the way she’s mostly holding still. He tries his best to capture her high cheekbones, the strong line of her nose; the quirk of a smile as she turns the page, amused by something she’ll share with him whenever she thinks he'll enjoy it. He draws her horns, too, carefully outlining the way they curve back and outwards.

Maker, but he loves her just as she is. Horns and all, towering and grey as polished slate: gentle and kind, strong and fearless.

He folds the drawing into the envelope alongside the letter.

_Dear Mia,_

_Her name is Herah._

**Author's Note:**

> I wish they'd given us this option in the game. (I mean, I've modded it, but due to rigging issues, I, uh, wouldn't recommend it. The makeout scenes are hilarious.) There's something about having this guy who is pretty physically imposing and very aware of it being in a relationship with Adaar. She puts him in a position you don't often see strong men in in media, which is to say physically vulnerable in comparison to a woman but still finding her lovely and feminine - still wanting her, even without any possibility of physical power over her. To me it's very sweet, and I'm sad that it's not something they chose to explore.
> 
> This has been in my wips folder for two years. It says good things for my Shepard/Sam fic I still need to finish, I guess...


End file.
